My immediate family on my mom’s side consists of my mom, Jaima (pictured: middle), her boyfriend, Ken (pictured: front right), Ken’s youngest son, Nick (pictured back left), and Ken’s oldest son, Kyle (pictured back right). Ken grew up in the Chicago area, and is therefore a diehard Cub’s fan. This summer we took a weekend and went to a Cubs vs Reds game in Cincinnati and King’s Island.
The stadium was packed for the 7:10 game. We all had a fantastic time. The food was crazy expensive ($5 for a bottle of water?!) but fantastic. I had a barbecue pulled pork sandwich. Unfortunately, the Cubs lost (big time), but otherwise it was a great experience. The fireworks afterward were pretty, so that was a bonus.
Saturday we woke up around 9am, ate breakfast at the hotel, and headed out to King’s Island for the day. Parking was a hassle (it took us like 25-30 minutes to find a spot), but it was totally worth it! We spent the remainder or the morning walking around the amusement park and even got everyone to ride the Racers. After that I remembered why I don’t really like roller coasters. We continued to walk around for a bit until I convinced Nick to go to the water park with me. From there we split off from mom, Ken, and Kyle for the majority of the day.
Nick and I ended up buying water shoes almost immediately because the ground was burning up. After our impulse buy we headed over to the wave pool. We were in the deepest part for about two minutes when a lifeguard blew his whistle and jumped in and raced towards a kid. The waves immediately stopped. He pulled the kid back up to shore and went to file an incident report. It’s the first time I’ve ever witnessed a lifeguard in action. I was actually very impressed at their attention to detail because the wave pool was completely full. From there we walked to where the water slides were. While the majority of our time was spent waiting in line, it was well worth it. The slides were a LOT of fun, the best being the Toilet Bowl. We waited in line for almost an hour and a half for it, but it was definitely the best water ride there.
Around 5pm we headed back over to the regular park to eat dinner with the rest of our family. We were shocked to learn Kyle, the person that hates roller coasters the most, rode the Diamondback, the largest roller coaster at King’s Island. They even bought the photo of him as proof because they knew none of us would believe it otherwise! Overall we had a really great experience in Cincinnati. While it was a very expensive way to spend time outdoors, it did make a fantastic family getaway.
The Great Outdoors 